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Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Correction: 1975 Hiking/Camping Trip was to Pierce Lake and Not Eaton Lake

My younger brother Mark was vastly improved company last evening over what he provided Sunday evening.

My wife Jack was due to arrive home last evening, but with Mango Thai Restaurant being open until 10:00 p.m. each night of the week, I knew that she wouldn't show up here in Surrey from Vancouver until at least 11:30 p.m.

So I sat up.

Her youngest son Pote and his girlfriend had gone out somewhere for awhile in the evening, but they had returned and gone to bed before Jack was home.

They typically do this so that they don't have to interact with Jack.

When Jack got home and asked about them, I truthfully stated that the pair had only gone to bed 10 or 15 minutes before she had gotten home, and that they would not be sleeping yet.

But Jack left them.

Jack proved to be tired, and was going to be spending the night.

And when I saw that she had finally gone to bed, I soon joined her ─ by then, it was around 12:44 a.m.

I think that it may have been shortly after 3:00 a.m. when I had my first break in sleep, so I used the bathroom.

That point always marks the commencement of broken sleep.

I guess Jack was not faring even as well as I was.

It was a little ahead of 8:30 a.m. when I perceived that she was getting up; and after she had left the bedroom, I rose as well.

I saw that we had enjoyed a little rain outside overnight.

I went downstairs to boil water for my day's first hot beverage, but she asked me to check online to see how much was in her personal account ─ she had some shopping she needed to do.

She had less than $64.

And she was soon away.

I marvelled how she was able to just take off on an errand like that without a coffee or even the benefit of a fast shower or something ─ she admitted to having slept badly, and she looked sorrily ravaged for it.

However she managed the shopping, she never touched her personal account ─ the same figure is still her balance.

She wasn't away for too very long.

Soon, she was hard at cooking ─ a couple of great dishes that she would be leaving for our enjoyment.

And before it was probably yet 11:00 a.m., she had left to return to Vancouver.

There was no brief good-bye kiss, and we had hardly talked in the time she was home. We certainly never had a conversation about anything.

Yet she seemed amicable enough ─ perhaps just very tired.

Her oldest son Tho had of course gone to work early in the morning, but younger Pote could just not bother to part from his girlfriend in bed to say one word to his hardworking mother.

I heard him finally get up late in the noon hour to probably check out what his mother had prepared ─ she had also brought home food last night.

That was my cue to lie down for awhile and rest my eyes and my aching body.

But Pote was not up for the day. He was soon back in bed with his girlfriend, watching a movie or something on her laptop.

They're not just sitting up in bed with their legs stretched out ─ they're lying on their sides in the dark facing toward the laptop screen that's elevated somewhat, on a piece of furniture right by the bed.

How the hell can people just lie in bed like that for so many hours?

It was at least 13 hours in bed before the kitchen raid ─ and now they're lying there again?

That's how they'll spend much of the afternoon.

By middle age, the two of them are already going to be looking a generation older than they really will be. No young adulthood should be spent so damned indolently ─ Pote's only 18, for Pete's sake!

At his age, I was exercising regularly, and walking miles and miles a day. The only time I ever would have been lying around in bed like that would have been if I was deathly ill.

I feel no respect.

I am undoubtedly additionally perturbed because he has not offered to help with the monthly house mortgage in a few months, despite working full-time just as is his older brother Tho who also pays nothing.

Tho has never even offered to help out.

I don't need these two in my life ─ not when the penalty is so financially severe for me.

Even my wife Jack has not offered mortgage help this time, and the $1,600 hit on our chequing account will likely strike no later than Friday.

I am having to cover the whole figure, and am only able to do so because of the $2,500 RRSP redemption I applied for last month.

There is only about $2,000 left of that, and I estimate that I will need to transfer at least half of it to my chequing account just to be able to have enough funds to cover the mortgage.

The redemption was money that I hoped would be there to meet small emergencies over the course of the year ─ not get decimated like this in just one month!

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The clouds held sway until towards mid-afternoon when the sunny stretches in the sky started becoming much more extensive.

I want now to post an old photo of my mother's ─ the description beneath is from the Google album where I have the scan stored:

I suppose that the photo could be from sometime in the 1970s, but I have no idea where it was taken (most likely in the U.S.).

Alex was my mother's husband.

And now I am going to close with an entry from my journal of 41 years ago when I was 25 years old, and living in a basement housekeeping unit in New Westminster.

I was renting my room in a house located on Ninth Street at Third Avenue. However, for the past few days, I had been sleeping at the home of my younger brother Mark and his girlfriend Catherine Jeanette Gunther.

Mark and Jeanette had gone on a trip to the Edmonton area, and they needed me to tend to their German shepherd Daboda while they were away.

Their rented home was situated on Bentley Road ─ very near to 108th Avenue & King George Highway ─ in Whalley.

SATURDAY, July 19, 1975

I didn't get up till around 10:00 a.m. Looks like another cloudy day, but after noon came sun.I walked home after phoning Bill about 12:30 p.m.; he was in bed, having gotten off work 2:00 a.m. or so, starting a 7:00 p.m. or so shift; he was interested in the smorgasbord, so I said I'd buzz him after getting into town, allowing him chance to sleep further.At home I gathered together various things and did some chins, but just before doing anything, I was affected with prickly sensations in a couple spots above my left knee. I thought perhaps some life-form was biting me. And indeed, upon stripping down, I found 3 inflamed spots reminiscent in appearance to a heavy series of mosquito bites.

Lots of pretty girls were out today, including 2 luscious cyclists that came my way just as I was reaching the bridge from Surrey.

When I buzzed Bill, he was up.

First we picked up my photos (few are good; I have but 18 of 20, and none are of Cathy; the best was the Pierce Lake area shot which didn't "benefit" from a flash cube), then at McBride I shopped, buying soap, a stew chicken, and 4 cans of dog food.

Bill had given me 50¢, so I paid his smorgasbord tab. I fed heartily. After, we picked up his dozen beer from my place and took it to here at Mark's for tomorrow night.Then he left.I like it here at Mark's; I do hope I can win a lottery and enjoy similar conveniences.Bed by 12:15 a.m.

My old friend William Alan Gill had a bachelor apartment in New Westminster, and was employed full-time at Royal City Foods ─ a cannery that used to be located in New Westminster on the shore of the Fraser River, just downstream from the Pattullo Bridge.

He and I would sometimes get together to enjoy a superb and inexpensive smorgasbord that was located in the McBride shopping plaza (McBride Boulevard & Eighth Avenue) in New Westminster.

It had originally been the Swedana, but by 1975 may have been the Family Smorgasbord.

I gave him a call from Mark's home before making the hike to my room in New Westminster.

To phone Bill from New Westminster, I had to get out and use a payphone.

So it was to Pierce Lake that I had hiked to and camped with Mark, Jeanette ("Cathy"), a fellow named Charlie Little, and Daboda. I had been misidentifying it as probably being Eaton Lake.

We only spent the first night there. After seeing how useless it was insofar as fishing went, we returned about halfway back to a creek and camped there for a second night.

I see that I did like being at that house Mark and Jeanette were renting ─ I had conjectured as much a day or two ago when writing about it.

I will have to take a stroll over to there in the near future just to get a clearer idea on precisely where the house used to be, if that's still possible to determine ─ Whalley has changed so darned much.